Your Surgery

Pre-operative Experience

The morning of surgery, the pre-op nurse will prepare you for your procedure and let you know what to expect before and after the surgery. Our goal is to minimize anxiety and answer your questions regarding your stay. Your vital signs will be taken and we will review your health history with you while making an overall assessment of your health. At this time an intravenous (IV) line may be started and pre-operative medications given. If any additional testing is ordered by your physician, this will be completed. The operating room nurse will also speak to you to explain what you will experience in the operating room.

Anesthesiologist

The anesthesiologist will visit with you prior to surgery to discuss your anesthesia care plan. The anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist will be by your side from the moment you leave the pre-op area until you arrive in the recovery area, all-the-while following your anesthetic plan.

The two most common types of anesthesia are general and regional anesthesia. The risks, benefits, and answers to your questions will be discussed with the anesthesiologist.

• During general anesthesia you are completely asleep during the procedure. A breathing tube is placed to help you breathe.
• With regional anesthesia, a portion of the body is rendered insensitive or numb to the stimuli of surgery.

With all forms of anesthesia, a patient will feel minimal, if any pain during the surgical procedure, and the anesthesia will take a while to wear off. It is required that someone stay with you for the first 24 hours after anesthesia due to occasional periods of decreased awareness.

Operating Room

The CORE Institute Specialty Hospital is a specialized hospital which performs spinal and orthopedic surgical procedures on both an inpatient and outpatient basis. Our board-certified surgeons are dedicated to providing superior care to every patient. During the operative period one of our specially trained operating room nurses will remain with you as your patient care advocate until you are delivered to the team in the recovery room.

Recovery/Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU)

The recovery room is a calm environment where you will emerge from anesthesia. Here we will begin to provide pain control, prevent and/or treat nausea, and deliver warming therapies for your comfort. In order to protect the privacy of our patients, we do not invite family in this stage of your recovery period. Our PACU nursing team will use a scoring system to help evaluate your readiness to be admitted to your inpatient room, or to be discharged to go home. At that time, pain control and discharge instructions will be reviewed with your support person, as anesthesia can affect your ability to remember or comprehend the discharge instructions.